Esteban Guzman, who posted a video of a verbal confrontation he had with a woman while working in Running Springs a couple weeks ago, poses for a photo outside his Culver City home on Friday, June 29. The video, which captured the woman making disparaging comments about Latinos, went viral. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Viral videos of people berating others on account of race, religion or presumed immigration status are being posted on social media fast and furious these days.

Smartphones, changing attitudes, President Donald Trump and the meteoric rise of social media may all share the blame, experts say.

While scattering pine needles with a leaf blower, boarding a train for the beach and ordering tea and coffee at popular shops, people across Southern California have found themselves the targets of slurs and disparaging remarks in recent weeks.

Those private confrontations, which likely would have gone unnoticed years ago, were broadcast far and wide. One video of a particularly heated conversation has been viewed more than 8 million times on Twitter and Facebook.

“For many of us, when we were kids there was an empty threat, ‘Do you want to see that on the front page of the newspaper?’” said Karen North, a USC professor of digital and social media. “Today it is no longer an empty threat.”

A video posted to Twitter shows Culver City resident Esteban Guzman in a confrontation with a woman in the San Bernardino County mountain community of Running Springs. She said Latinos are “rapists,” “drug dealers” and “animals.” (Photo via Twitter)

The string of very public confrontations was highlighted most recently by a video that captured insults an older white woman hurled at a Latino man and his mother as they cleaned a San Bernardino County mountain property to ready it for rental to tourists via Airbnb.

In the Running Springs incident, the woman says 27-year-old Esteban Guzman of Culver City and his mother are “rapists,” “drug dealers” and “animals” because they are “Mexican.” Trump used the same three terms to characterize some immigrants coming across the southern border illegally, though he later said the term “animals” was meant to describe members of a notorious gang. Guzman’s confrontation occurred in late June.

Earlier that month, Felisha Carrasco, a 23-year-old Riverside resident, posted a video accusing a security guard at that city’s downtown transit station of joking that a Metrolink train was “going to Tijuana” because many Latinos were climbing aboard. The guard, employed by a private contractor, and a Metrolink conductor were initially placed on leave.

A Metrolink conductor, left, and a security guard, center, were initially put on leave after accusations that the guard said a train was headed to Tijuana because it had many Latinos onboard. Felisha Carrasco, right, videotaped the incident. (Photo via Facebook)

In May, a Latino customer at a Starbucks shop in La Cañada Flintridge received two coffee cups with the word “Beaner” – a derogatory term for Mexicans – printed on them instead of his name. The customer’s coworkers put photos on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat.

Also in May, 27-year-old Kathleen Deady posted a video of a confrontation she had with a man at a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf shop in the Riverside Plaza. The Riverside woman, who is Muslim, wore a niqab that covered her face, except for her eyes, and a jilbaab that covers the body.

Glancing at her attire, the man sarcastically asked, “Is this Halloween or something?” He went on to say he disliked her Muslim religion because he said it calls for killing people.

Riverside resident Kathleen Deady, far left, videotaped a confrontation in a coffee shop with a man she accused of making disparaging comments about Muslims. (Photo via Twitter)

Deady and others who were insulted said they pulled out smartphones, recorded the conversations then uploaded them to social media to raise awareness and spur change.

“I hope that the video and what I had to go through with my mom shows people that racism is a big problem in the world,” Guzman said by phone.

It is hardly surprising that victims of explicit racism are quick to hit the record button, experts say.

David Frederick, an associate professor of psychology at Chapman University in Orange who studies prejudice, attitudes and close relationships, said video is “one powerful tool.” That’s because “it is impossible to deny that racism affects people’s lives when you see it right in front of your face,” Frederick wrote in an email.

But why are so many disturbing videos popping up these days? Are such confrontations occurring more often? Or are we seeing more of them because the ubiquitous smartphone has made it so easy to record them?

The answer is probably both, said Adrian Moore, vice president of policy for the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank in Los Angeles.

North, the USC social media expert, said the smartphone has transformed just about everyone into a potential news reporter.

“Because of digital devices, people have high-resolution cameras and news broadcasting equipment in their pockets,” North said.

And, she said, “When things happen in the world, there are ‘reporters’ there to capture the moment.”

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While public exposure of those moments is clearly on the rise, the actual number of such confrontations may be increasing, too, experts say.

“These public displays of bigotry may actually be outpacing the increase in hate crimes,” he said.

Levin said his center is projecting that, when all statistics are in for 2017, the numbers will show that, for a third straight year, hate crimes rose statewide.

He said the total jumped from 758 in 2014 to 837 in 2015, then to 931 in 2016. He predicted the 2017 total will surpass 1,000 for the first time since 2011.

Before the recent uptick, California was following a downward trajectory after peaking at about 2,000 hate crimes in 2001, Levin said.

Levin based his projection of a third straight annual increase on 2017 statistics already available for the nation’s 38 largest cities. That trend is detailed in a center report.

The center reported 254 hate crimes in Los Angeles last year, up from 229 in 2016. Long Beach logged 18 hate crimes, up from nine. Anaheim had the same as the previous year: one. Hate crimes fell in Riverside, which had six in 2017 after reporting nine the year before, and in San Bernardino, which had five, a drop from nine. The report did not include Santa Ana, Levin said.

Experts say there is no question the spike in video confrontations is alarming.

“We thought we were becoming steadily a more tolerant and more cosmopolitan culture,” Moore said. “Either that wasn’t true, or the parts of our culture that aren’t that way are just more out in the open.”

Dave is a general assignment reporter based in Riverside, writing about a wide variety of topics ranging from drones and El Nino to trains and wildfires. He has worked for five newspapers in four states: Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona and California. He earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Colorado State University in 1981. Loves hiking, tennis, baseball, the beach, the Lakers and golden retrievers. He is from the Denver area.